I would like to thank the publisher's of Hero Kids for creating this great product as looks like it is going to be a regular gaming activity for my daughter and friends. We had our first gaming session this past weekend and it went over like gangbusters. Our group included two 7 year old girls (my daughter and a friend), two adult players (to help out), one 9 year old boy and myself as the game master. The kids picked up the basic mechanics very quickly and within an hour had advanced beyond basic combat into skill and encounter tests.

Everyone loved the creative and inspiring character cards, and we had almost as much fun cutting out and prepping the well drawn monster and hero tokens. We got through about 3/4 of the Basement O' Rats Adventure (which took a bit longer than expected due to the size of the party and some energetic role-playing on all sides of the table) before it was time to fold everything up for dinner. Groans were muttered by many at this time, and questions about when we would finish quickly came up.

My only complaint about this product (and it's a minor one) is that my daughter was a little disappointed we would not be using "Daddy's cool dice" sets.

The art is great, the story was fun, and the mechanics were simple enough to learn quickly while still leaving room for growth in complexity if need be.

Thank you from Buffy the Brute, Fred the Hunter, Sophia the Healer, Ash the Rogue, and Blackrose the Druid.

I played AD&D for over 15 years (as player and DM), so i could easily build something for my kids (6 and 8 years old).
I somehow end up on this set... im glad i did; not only saved me a lot of trouble by simplifying rules; i should add, very intelligently. :)

I love it, they love it, its super simple which is what i needed for my kids. Only problem is finding the time to play again since we had such a blast they dont want to stop playing :)

Haven't had a chance to play this with my boys, but seems well thought out. Really nicely described complexity progression for different age/abilities. I was disappointed that there weren't more female characters in the core rulebook: they start with male and female versions of the first two character types, and then it's just boys boys boys.

Rating:

[4 of 5 Stars!]

Publisher Reply:

Thanks for the review Tiest. Five of the ten heroes in the core game are girls:
Rogue, Hunter, Warlock, Healer, Warrior
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gXe3I-6BSMs/UI8ZgXWwIGI/AAAAAAAAFFs/GauYFxwJPRM/s1600/Hero+Kids+-+Hero+Line-Up+-+540x153.png

I've played this game with my two daughters, ages 4 and 5, and they really seemed to have liked it. They managed to play through the entire beginning scenario without stopping. I was a bit surprised.

The system is very simple, and I have to say that it works rather well. The girls were able to play with just a little bit of help and (more importantly) without getting frustrated. Instead of XP's in a typical RPG, they were rewarded with M&M's, which are infinitely more valuable to a preschool player.

The oldest is in kindergarten and reads only at Level 1. The younger child is still in preschool and doesn't read at all. Their math skills are pretty much limited to simple addition. Nevertheless, because of how the system works, they can understand the dice rolls -- how they work and how they are resolved -- and they can understand the "stats" of their characters. I have to remind them of their characters' "class" abilities, since they can't effectively read the words on their character sheets, but these abilities are few and some are obvious, such as the healer's ability to heal.

In addition to how the rules work, the system has a few more advantages for kids. The game is set up so that the characters themselves are children, which makes them much easier for young children to identify with and role play. The artwork looks like it came off of a Saturday morning cartoon show, which also helps young kids relate to the game and identify with their characters. The fantasy theme meshes well with what they are already familiar with from Disney films.

The system is completely d6. The idea is that you can be ready to play by raiding the family Yahtzee set. The materials are easy to print out and use. There are even free PDF's of the characters that can be printed for children to color or draw on.

Since my girls have asked (almost begged) to continue playing, I have bought the expansions to this game as well. I recommend this system to anyone interested in getting their children, particularly very young children, into the imagination-inspiring world of role-playing games. It's a great start.

This game was all I hoped for and more! My 4-and-a-half year old and I played it tonight for the first time (thanks to the PDF version, because he just couldn't stand to wait another week or so for the soft cover to arrive), and as soon as we finished, he wanted to play again. The basic rules, storyline (for Basement O' Rats), and character sheets were very age-appropriate, and he was very quickly able to understand the opposed dice pool concept. The storyline is flexible enough to allow (and encourage!) customization and role-playing. The story also lasted much longer for us than the 30 minutes suggested (it took us almost 2 hours), and while this may be because my son is so young, or because it was our first game and we were learning the mechanics, it worked out great. He doesn't have much of an attention span normally, but the gameplay and character involvement kept him super-focused and excited the whole duration, and we had no idea that much time had passed. We cannot wait to order more adventures!

Having been an RPG player as a kid I was looking for a way to share that experience with my two kids, 8 & 6. Hero Kids is fantastic fun for all of us! I get to be the controlling GM, adjusting play as needed for their experience. The kids get to delve into the rich experience of RPG games at a level appropriate for their age.
My Son (6) said it best when he stated how excited he was to be able to actually CHOSE what to do in the game, unlike his favorite video game!
We are now working on playing pieces for the game. There is nothing like mixing crafts with RPG gaming for kids!

I don't often give feedback on things but had to for this. I have played a bit of D&D when I was in my youth and enjoyed the game. My boys (9 and twins 6) like to play iPad and playstation. I thought I would give this a go to see if they Gould open their minds and be a bit creative rather than staring at a screen. The rules are pretty simple and easy to follow with flexibility to make your own bits up.
My kids absolutely love it. They come home from school and instead of asking for the iPad they ask for Hero Kids.
He have done a few of the adventures now I have also made a few up and have then traveling between quests with the use of the map.
This really is fantastic and a very good price. Best bet is to get the bundle. I find the games last longer than they say but that's 3 kids (plus baby sister stealing dice) and they have a character and pet each. You should get figures or use the standup cards. Get the kids to colour them in too! The couloring books are a great touch too.
When we are not playing the kids make up their own characters, pets and sometimes maps!
I just got the new space one too, but not tried that out yet.
fantastic game and great to spend some quality time with the kids. Also introduces them to RPGs.

My son is almost 4 and he had a great time sneaking through the basement trying to clear it of rats. We played a heavily slimmed down rule set, but I think that is the beauty of Hero Kids, you only need to enforce the rules that the young attention spans will allow. As he gets older I'm sure we'll revisit the adventures in more complicated versions.

I played a couple of games of this with my 5 year old daughter (very short attention span) while on holiday.

I was very rusty and but the game mechanics are really straight forward and scalable. She absolutely loved it.

We played "Basement of Rats" a number of times (which did get a little tiresome on the 4th repeat, but she was still going strong), and then moved on to "Curse of the Shadow Walkers" which was more involved and much more fun to GM. My daughter liked this even more.

I am going to print out "Glade of the Unicorn" and give that one a go.

Fantastic intro for kids in to the world of RPGs. My two kids (4, 7) had no trouble picking up the mechanics and surprised me with their creativity. The 4 year old didn't get strategy stuff but got a solid handle on the fighting mechanic very quickly. The 7 year old easily grasped mechanics and was starting to get a grip on strategy by the end of our first session playing Basement o Rats. Buy it if you have kids and you're even remotely interested in playing RPGs.

Purchased this one afternoon. After 10 minutes of printing and another 20 of cutting and taping, we were playing!

I've been trying to find ways to start introducing role playing elements to a 4-year-old. Hero Kids did the trick! Things I like:
- simple dice rolls and comparison of results
- the character and baddie images are very nice
- the maps are wonderful: our players love revealing new locations as we play
- plenty of open hooks for us to add rules or options as our players learn
- more than just combat: characters have other interesting items to achieve their goals with

This game exceeded my expectations on awesomeness for kids in this range. The drawings, maps, and adventures are perfect.

Half (or more) of the fun for them is looking at the pictures and discussing the characters details and pretending to be one or the other. The actual game -- while perfect for them -- wasn't even the thing they were most interested in. As a result, just the first *map* of the Rats in the Basement adventure took us around an hour to finish, from printout, character selection, discussion of the game world, etc. In other words, you should expect to get much more than "30 minutes" of fun and play out of a single adventure.